On March 28, 2018, CleanScapes partnered with Range Resources to hold our first community cleanup of 2018.

After weeks of planning, volunteer employees from Range Resources and I met that morning at the Memorial Park Public Pool parking lot in Mill Hall. As with all our cleanups, we talked about safety and organized teams – and then we broke off to begin the morning’s work. Our task was to cleaning up unsightly litter from a 3-mile stretch of Fishing Creek and Route 64.

I must begin by noting what a stellar job the Range Resources crew performed.

It was an extremely challenging site – not volume wise, but we picked up and bagged thousands and thousands of small items. And, as you may know – or at least can imagine, that’s a huge workout!

We were out there in hyper drive –oh-there’s a bottle, got it! Quick glance to the right-another one! Look left – another one… picking up and picking up… each of us gathered at least 25 items and no one’s bag was full! Were we filling bottomless bags? I can only state that I’ve been doing this type of work since 1999 and even though I intellectually know we worked obsessively and did an incredible job cleaning up the sites, I always seem to fall back on the success of the event being based on the total volume, cubic yards or weight of material taken out versus the total number of items picked up!

Ironically, we didn’t fill the roll-off dumpster, but we did remove a greater total number of items from this location than we normally collect from sites that produce greater overall volumes of trash.

In other words, this reach of Fishing Creek looked forsaken and neglected because thousands of pieces of litter dishonored this treasured community park and waterway. To resolve this, the Range Resources employees put on their “Jack Russell” attitudes and tenaciously set out to clear the area of litter.

After just three hours of work, the crew removed 840 pounds of debris and two tires from the 3-mile stretch. That’s 93 pounds per person collected.

On behalf of CleanScapes and the Community Park in Mill Hall visitors, we are all very thankful Range Resources choose to spend their annual day of community service with CleanScapes and we look forward to working with them in 2019!

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Elisabeth Lynch McCoy is the Project Director for Clinton County CleanScapes. Learn more about Elisabeth here and see the 2018 Cleanup Schedule here.